Evolution of Character
by Lex Q. Coverdale
Summary: After all is said and done, the remaining Blood Gulch Crew has changed in more ways than one. Simmons reflects on the changes he has seen in Grif after the events of Revelation. -*Post RvB: Revelation Oneshot; possible spoilers*-


**- Evolution of Character -**

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_(Halo (c) Microsoft Studios, Bungie & related creators; Red vs. Blue (c) the Rooster Teeth team. Text (c) L.Q. Coverdale. Some implied inappropriate content; some content may be spoilers for RvB: Revelation.)_**  
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Dexter Grif, to the world, changed as much as a grain of sand in a barrel of clay would. He was the most sluggish, most unfit, most slothful example of a soldier all of Red Team could have laid eyes on. His morals were dubious, his taste in free time questionable, as shown by his theft of Simmons's many credit cards. The fact that he frequently abused his willingly-given organs - which Simmons had suffered through hours of cybernetic modification and the odd, sharp pain for - with constant overeating and six packs of cigarettes a day was also irksome. He smelt, he passed off work onto the others, and when it was all revealed that there was no Red or Blue, it all made sense. The only place lower for Grif than simulation activities was scrubbing the bathrooms on some great ship in the beyond. And even _then_, Grif would probably spend more time napping in the toilets instead of making them decent!

But the world is not always changed by force or deliberate action. He who picked up the rock and moved it out of the road had made the road safer to travel across. However, what of the fellow who stood in the background, so lazy to encourage but encouraging nonetheless? What of the surprisingly quiet fellow who found thinking too much of a bother, but when pushed in times of great stress, had one of the sharpest minds Simmons knew?

Grif was not a worker by nature, but there was something else about him that Simmons had barely noticed before. Long before Simmons had begun to wane in his opinion of Sarge, who had called the old man out for throwing a comrade out into battle in the worst way simply out of disdain? Who had pointed out the desperate, sycophantic attempts of Simmons's at getting Sarge's attention and climbing the rank ladder? Who had seemingly backed out of trying to argue with Donut when there was too much Chantilly lace decorating the base, causing a mass argument between him, Sarge and Simmons?

If Grif was not such an apathetic man, he really, really was one of the few soldiers among the two bands of screw-ups who held any real sanity. Sarge had symptoms of PTSD, which Simmons had learned was from a failed ODST drop sometime earlier in his career. Simmons had certain father issues that he cared not to talk about, and those issues had driven him to bury himself in academia just to feel a sense of worth. And Donut ... was just Donut, too cheery and naive to pick up on some of the darker quirks of his teammates. Grif, however, seemed level-headed enough, and _he_ was the one who had been abandoned with his wild sister at a young age. Simmons had had both parents, even though one of them had been responsible for many of his more arrogant tendencies in life. He couldn't imagine what it was like to wake up one day, barely out of his teens and with a younger sibling to care for, and find that the rest of his family had up and left.

Maybe _that_ was why Grif was so apathetic. Maybe somewhere along the line of his life, something in him had sunk as low as Simmons had. His mother had joined a _freak show_, for God's sake, and Grif had never mentioned his father at all. Then there was Sister, constantly humiliating him and throwing herself into wild situations; every time she mentioned an abortion or some sort of binge, Grif flinched. And it was not the same flinch that Simmons made out of disgust - it was the kind of flinch somebody made when they had failed. It was the kind of flinch that was made when somebody could slap themselves black and blue for not doing anything.

In that single moment, something struck Simmons in his train of thought, equivalent to dropping an anvil on his brain. Grif, a long time ago, had become so tired and jaded of not being able to do anything that he gave up. He was a conscript, stressed from years of trying to take care of his sister, and probably further stressed from being separated from her when she was so wild. The short amount of time she had spent with Red Team had been a testament to that.

Then, there was how Grif and Sarge had become so close as of late. Simmons was not sure of how such a bond came to be, as Sarge had gladly chewed out, insulted, injured and even almost _killed _Grif on a number of occasions. How could the pair, after vanishing for a few days or so, suddenly come back as begrudging buddy-buddies? Tucker had mentioned Grif calling Sarge out once, but Simmons found the entire idea ridiculous. Sarge, listening to _Grif_? The thought was about as ridiculous as Sister not drooling over anything that moved.

Maybe something had changed in Grif. The whole ordeal with Epsilon and the Freelancers had changed everybody, somehow; Caboose was more brooding, Washington seemed to be easing into his new place, Tucker was less immature ... And Simmons, well, he found himself thinking for himself more often than not. With all his free time, too, he had begun to pick up pen and paper and write poetry again. There was a particularly interesting piece he was working on - an experiment in _terza rima_, which was proving much more difficult than anticipated because of a lack of interesting wording. But Simmons was getting off track; what could possibly change in Grif that made him obtain so much more respect?

Simmons stared upwards, listening to the snoring of his bunkmate for a minute. He thought back to the day the Meta had been taken on by them all, when Grif had jumped upon the insane Freelancer to distract his shot. In the beginning, before the Freelancers, before the Meta, before Gary and Omega and even Sheila, Grif would not have been so...gutsy, for lack of a better word. He would have run and hid, leaving Sarge or someone else to blast away at the Meta. For all his apathy, he had cared enough about Epsilon and about his teammates to leap into the fray along with him. And, despite all his yelping and fear the way along, he had piloted a Pelican _after just one tutorial session_. Simmons still forgot which pedals to use in the Warthog from time to time, and here was Grif, flying a _Pelican_.

It was after this thought that Simmons came to his conclusion. Grif, although still lazy, fat and preferring sleep over everything else, had begun to break through his apathy. Whatever jaded feelings were there had begun to melt as time went on. Whatever bitterness was there that he felt towards Sarge had begun to fade away. It had taken a rogue military program, an A.I. with identity issues and several months of doing Grif's least favourite thing (activity), but in the end, Simmons felt he had begun to see the real Grif: a clever, adaptable, mostly sane jerk that had devotion in there somewhere. He just needed something to apply it to.

And Simmons couldn't help but enjoy having around such a Grif.

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_Author's Note: Inspired by the character sheet for RvB on TV Tropes. It describes Grif as "The Chick" in the Five Man Band setup, so I tried to roll with that in this oneshot._


End file.
